Illustrating progress across the SUN Civil Society Network

Over the past couple of years, Civil Society has played an important role in contributing to national efforts towards scaling up nutrition in SUN countries. As of February 2014, 47 countries had joined the SUN movement and, of those, 29 countries have seen the formation and growing contribution of civil society alliances, platforms, coalitions, each at varying stages of development and establishment.

Each Civil Society Alliance of the SUN movement is unique both in terms of its contribution to national multi-stakeholder efforts but also in terms of their establishment and governance structures. For example,

• Sierra Leone Civil Society Platform has adopted a co-leadership model with FOCUS 1000, a national NGO, and Helen Keller International, an international NGO, leading the platform;
• Mali’s CSA has adopted a model of leadership by the national CSO OMAES with active support for Helen Keller International;
• CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia was hosted by Save the Children for the first two years and now hosted by the Platform for Social Protection Zambia (PSP Zambia), a national NGO;
• Mozambique’s Civil Society Platform is led by a national NGO ANSA (Association of Food and Nutrition Security).

Some of the CSA’s recent efforts include:

• Zambia CSO-SUN Alliance has been championing the media to advance scaling up nutrition efforts in the country – check out Zambia’s SUN Civil Society Alliance and National Broadcasting Corporation Team Up to tell the ‘Silent Story’ of undernutrition and Zambia’s CSO-SUN Alliance Recognizes Champions at Nutrition Award Event
• Uganda’s UCCO-SUN (Uganda Civil Society Coalition on Scaling Up Nutrition) has been busy coordinating renewed efforts to end preventable newborn and child deaths, participating in Uganda’s first annual nutrition forum, supporting the organization of the ‘Run for Good Nutrition Marathon,’ as well as hosting a joint event with Save the Children to launch the ‘Budget Transparency and Child Nutrition Report. – check out an update on UCCO-SUN’s efforts.
• Malawi and Mozambique Civil Society Alliances are establishing district-level civil society platforms to contribute to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the national plans.
• The Ghana Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for Scaling up Nutrition (GHACCSUN) has led a number of efforts including advocacy activities to support the finalisation of the national nutrition policy and engage in the development of the national nutrition plan, Public and community sensitisation of nutrition through media outreach and education, direct nutrition programming by individual CSA members, the mapping of CSO activities and efforts to contribute to a better understanding of the nutrition landscape in the country.
• The Partnership for nutrition in Tanzania (PANITA), a CSA of 280 organisations comprising INGOs, national NGOS, community-based organisations, faith-based organisations and academia, has been busy advocating to build a strong network of MP nutrition champions in Tanzania and Zanzibar and piloting the CSA advocacy strategy in one district, with the intention to roll-out to other districts; analysing district-level nutrition plans, budgets and expenditures in selected districts; engaged in policy and legal frameworks including the development of a food and nutrition policy; supported MPs that oversee government performance in nutrition with technical expertise and field trips; did public mobilisation and community awareness raising of national nutrition strategic plan; conducted capacity building activities for the CSA members on nutrition initiatives, advocacy, policy, and project management; amongst others.

More information on recent efforts can be found:

• On the SUN MPTF platform – http://mptf.undp.org/factsheet/fund/SUN00
• In the recent SUN CSN mapping report published online – http://scalingupnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Final-Report-on-Mapping-of-SUN-CSAs_EN_WEB.pdf
• In the New Year Special update from the SUN CSN – http://scalingupnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SUN-CSN-Update_New-Year-Special_Jan-2014_EN.pdf.

The SUN Civil Society Network (SUN CSN) was established to encourage the alignment of Civil Society Organisations’ (CSO) strategies, programmes and resources with country plans for scaling up nutrition. The CSN aims to achieve this through strengthening the support available for and capacity of, national Civil Society Alliances (CSA). It is responsible for encouraging effective engagement from civil society in the SUN process at national and global levels and supports CSAs in SUN countries to advocate for the development of ambitious plans. It also contributes to the implementation and rolling out of national costed plans and the monitoring of the delivery of those plans.

In February 2014, over 800 civil society organisations (including small-hold farmers, fisherfolk, human rights defenders, women’s groups, humanitarian and aid assistance agencies, advocacy and research entities, consumer groups, trade unions and many others) were working together and with governments, UN agencies, donors, businesses and academia towards scaling up nutrition efforts at local, sub-national, national, regional and global levels.

This following infographic shows this progress: